Trees
by all of the doughnuts
Summary: Delightful genfic based on a true story.


Victoria, Samantha, Carrie, and Cathy (Bridget in the original) are the names of the Goldenrod Gym Trainers in-game. I don't own Pokémon.

"BITCHES AIN'T SHIT BUT HOES AND TRICKS!"

It was about three in the morning and the girls from Goldenrod Gym had been the last to leave, so nobody else was on the road back to Goldenrod City from the New Year's party at the National Park. Everybody else was at least a few miles ahead of them. Whitney wished her companions would stop _goddam singing_; three a.m. is a dark hour of the morning and the headlights in her car only worked in the loosest sense of the word.

"You guys. You guys, come on," she tried to say, but they seemed to not hear her. Whitney decided that had to be it. Her own Gym Trainers would not disrespect her that way. They wouldn't.

Right?

"BITCHES AIN'T SHIT BUT HOES AND TRICKS!"

So Whitney gave up, and continued to drive as designated since she was the only sober one on New Year's Eve (yes, even the Lasses). Or New Year's Day, so far. In her sobriety, it occurred to Whitney, she could be alone in Goldenrod. Next year, she thought, she could hide in Azalea or Ecruteak. In Ecruteak, everybody would only be tipsy. In Azalea, did they do anything at all?

Suddenly, in the road, a Furret.

Whitney panicked. Although she liked to think, generally, that in this sort of situation she would have the sense to hit the brakes, she tried to switch into the left lane instead. She had done this before when encountering a Shuckle in the road once (to screeches of THAT'S HOW CARS TURN OVER NEVER DO THAT AGAIN WHITNEY WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU) but that time, she was wide awake. This morning, she was exhausted, frustrated, and surrounded by drunks.

Due to this, Whiney swerved to the left lane too far and found herself in danger of running off the road. Her correction became an overcorrection, which became another, then one more. Whitney screamed at the shock of driving up onto the median.

Needless to say, her Gym Trainers stopped singing and began to scream as well: obscenities, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE," Whitney's name, wordless shrieks, and so on. For a few terror-filled seconds they rolled along on the median. Were they all the way on it, or only halfway? Or was it just one tire?

Of the four small decorative trees growing on the media, Whitney was fortunate enough to only hit one with a loud BANG. After that she jerked the wheel to the left, sending the vehicle back into the right lane, where it had been.

"What are you doing?" Carrie's voice could have shattered the driver's-side rearview mirror...if it weren't shattered already.

"I-I don't know..." Whitney trembled. "Oh goddd..."

"Pull off the road up there, there's a parking lot."

As she did this, Whitney switched off the radio. Nobody mentioned it. The car shook badly, and Whitney knew that at least one tire was out, probably from the impact of dropping off the median...but more than one had gone up, right? They hit the tree full-on, didn't they? Shouldn't that mean more than one tire had blown?

With a sense of dread, Whitney got out of the car to check the damage, not waiting for the other four, who had to stumble. She found surprisingly little. The front driver's-side tire hung to the vehicle in tatters, as she expected it to, but a hesitant kick to the other three found them unharmed. She had already seen that the rearview mirror shattered, but other than a very small dent to the hood, the car seemed fine.

Nonetheless, Whitney shook with fright of being stranded out here at three in the morning even worse than the car had. A few tears already seeped from her eyes, but now, as she sank to the ground beside her car, they became real sobs.

"Whitney," asked Victoria, slowly. "Whitney, what're you doin'?"

"It was _scary_, okay!" Whitney sniffed. "Wahhh!"

"We oughtta call somebody..."

"No!" Whitney stood and snatched the Pokégear from Carrie's hand. "Don't call the police! We'll get in trouble!"

"I didn't say the police." Despite some disorientation, everybody's buzz died with the front driver's-side tire.

Whitney didn't give a damn if she said the police or not, she was not about to give back that phone. "Nobody calls anybody!"

"Keep your voice dow-"

But hysteria gripped the Gym Leader. "Give me your Pokégear! All of you! Nobody's calling anyone! We're going to change the tire and keep driving back to Goldenrod!"

"I told you we should have walked," said Samantha as she handed her Pokégear to Whitney.

"You wanna walk that far at three a.m.?"

"Whitney, you really need ot keep your-"

But Whitney had stowed the Pokégears in her bag and opened the hatchback of the car. "Somebody help me get out the spare tire!"

"Do you even know how to change a tire?" asked Cathy.

"I'll figure it out! How hard could it be? Men do it all the time!" Whitney rolled the tire to its appropriate place and went back to get a box of tools that was stored next to it in the back of the car.

"What did you even stop for, anyway?" asked Carrie.

"A Furret. There was a Furret in the road and I didn't want to hit it, okay?"

"No there wasn't," said Samantha. "I was in the front seat, there was nothing in the road!"

"You were drunk!"

"Wait a minute," said Victoria. "You guys. The tree is coming back."

A fresh round of sobs took Whitney. Why was this happening? Why were they being so unhelpful? "Victoria, that's...no. Trees can't come back. I destroyed that thing, didn't you see?"

"No you didn't."

"I did!"

"_Guys, it's not a tree, it's a Sudowoodo and it's coming right at us._"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Get in the car!"

"We can't!" Whitney snapped. She scuttled around a little. "The tire's out!"

"Then let's fight it!"

"All of our Pokémon are Normal types!" Whitney groaned. "Sudowoodo is a Rock type!"

"Shouldn't it be weakened by the car? Steel is super effective against Rock!"

"Well it doesn't look weakened to me!"

She just couldn't take it anymore. Whitney stopped scuttling and started sprinting back to Goldenrod on foot with a wail.

"Get back here, you coward!" yelled Cathy.

"No!" said Samantha. "She's right!" She started to follow Whitney. The Sudowoodo was less than twenty feet away.

"SUUUUUDOWOOOODOOOOOO!"

The other three ran for their lives. "Whitney!" shouted Samantha. "Gimme back my phone!"

It was then that two thousand Murkrow fell from the sky. But they weren't dead, because Pokémon can't die; they had just fainted.


End file.
